Kcuf Uoy Iami -Origin of Cum Uh Sol Nu-

First things first: the title of this post is in CODE, folks! See if you can figure it out :)

Now to the heart of the matter, which is this: we had a day off today, so we decided to get cracking on translating the lyrics to Atom Miraiha...and ended up spending three hours researching the meaning of "cum uh sol nu," to no avail. Imai refused to explain it to either Fish Tank or PHY magazine, but he did tell PHY magazine that it was a sort of "puzzle," that it might or might not be Latin, and that the reading in katakana might or might not be "kamu aa soru nuu."

That didn't give us a lot to go on.

However, he also said that the answer to the riddle was hidden in the lyrics, so that's where we started looking. In particular, the phrase "Shambhala-Agarttha" is repeated again and again in the chorus.

Shambhala is a medieval Buddhist prophecy which has gone through many interpretations over the years. At first, it served as encouragement to Buddhist people in Central Asia as the Muslim empire encroached upon their lands. Shambhala was said to be a mythical land in the north, where the Buddhist people would find salvation, but it was also a reference to a prophesied holy war, in which the mythic king Rudra Chakrin would lead massive armies to save the Buddhist world from the unbelievers, called Mlecca, meaning "people of Mecca," or Muslims. Interestingly, the geographical area north of Tibet, which is now southern Kazakhstan, is a green and hospitable country, in great contrast to the frigid, arid surrounding regions. Was this the real-life Shambhala? Nobody knows for certain. Over the centuries, the holy war aspect of Shambhala was internalized, and the word came to refer more to a war with one's own inner demons than a war with an external foe - in other words, Shambhala is both a Buddhist paradise, and the quest for Buddhist paradise within oneself, depending on who you ask.

Fast forward to the 1920's, just after the Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks had conquered the tsars, but they had yet to cement their power. How to impose this new idea of Communism upon a swath of territory stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean? In the early days of Red Russia, theosophy and occultism were widely studied and practiced, and some of the Bolsheviks sought to glean useful scientific knowledge from traditional occult practices. What if there were a way to hypnotize people or bend brain waves to influence people to adopt Communist ideals, love their comrades, and stop behaving in a selfish fashion? Gleb Bokii, one of the heads of the Bolshevik secret police, was an idealist who believed in the possibility that traditional cultures in Central Asia might hold the keys to new and powerful scientific techniques, and he set up a secret lab to conduct experiments in this vein. The man he selected to run the lab was his close friend Alexander Barchenko, who depending on your sources was either a hardcore bona fide occultist, or simply posing as an occultist in order to spy on the real occultists for the government.

In any case, Barchenko had studied with the French occult write Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, who was obsessed with the legend of Agarttha: an ancient kingdom deep under the earth, ruled by an enlightened elite, where the people had attained spiritual enlightenment and preserved ancient knowledge which had been lost in the world above. Saint-Yves d'Alveydre claimed that Agarttha was located in central Asia, and when Barchenko traveled to Central Asia to meet with Tibetan mystics, he heard about the Shambhala legend, and came to the conclusion that Agarttha and Shambala were in fact the same place. 

As part of a larger strategy, some of the Bolsheviks wanted to invoke the Shambhala legend to convince the peoples of Central Asia to embrace Communism. The claim was that the Communist principles were the principles that would lead to Shambhala enlightenment, and the prophecy indicated that salvation would come from the north, meaning Russia. Anti-Bolsheviks also invoked the Shambala prophecy to their own ends. In particular, "Mad Baron" Roman von Ungern-Sternberg set up a reign of terror in Outer Mongolia, studying the Shambhala prophecy extensively to try and convince the people he conquered that he was the incarnation of Rudra Chakrin...but that's a very long story, so go and look it up if you're interested.

Bokii and Barchenko, on the other hand, hoped that if they could discover mystical secrets to bend people's minds and wills toward noble behavior in service of the Communist cause, that they could achieve a Communist takeover of Central Asia without bloodshed. No one knows for sure what went on in their secret lab, but the rumor is that their goal was to create super-powered humans. Now doesn't that sound like something Imai would enjoy?

Unfortunately, by the 1930's, Stalin had achieved a firm grip on power, and deported the occultists in droves to Siberian labor camps. Stalin had also hated Bokii for years, and feared the information Bokii possessed as head of the Bolshevik secret police. In 1937, Bokii was arrested and executed (because shooting people was Stalin's favorite hobby.) Barchenko held out for a bit longer, claiming to the government he was a valuable scientist who could help develop massively powerful weapons, but soon he, too, bit the bullet, literally. Communist occultism was over, and nobody ever found Shambhala, until...

...did you notice, guys? An enlightened republic somewhere in Central Asia, serving as a repository of ancient wisdom? And nobody actually knows where it is or how to get there, but we know it's a paradise of untold wonder? Where else could it be but the Anarchic Republic of Buck-Tickistan! Why didn't we see it before? From this day forward, we're no longer calling it the Anarchic Republic of Buck-Tickistan. From this day forward, it's the Agartthic Republic of Buck-Tickistan. Or the Shambhalic Republic of Buck-Tickistan. Whichever you prefer.

If you want to read more about Shambhala and Red Russia, we suggest you check out the book Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia by Andrei Znamenski. This interview with him is where we obtained much of the information we used in this part of the article.

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Now let's get back to "cum uh sol nu." Imai hinted it might be Latin, but it doesn't appear to be. However, our research into occultism put us in a mind to research other ancient languages and occult concepts. We delved into The Secret Doctrine, Helena Blavatsky's bible of theosophy, which includes references to a lot of ancient Hindu and Buddhist ideas. The Secret Doctrine is one of the definitive works on theosophy, a form of European occultism practiced or dabbled in by many people interested in the Shambhala legend, including Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and Alexander Barchenko. Helena Blavatsky herself was either crazy or a genius or both, and she lived an extremely colorful life, so if you're in search of a good historical read, look up a biography of her.

Though we delved pretty deep into theosophical terminology, but we didn't come up with much. Kaama is the Sanskrit word for love or desire, and the concept plays a role in Hindu and Buddhist theology, as well as theosophy (remember the Kama Sutra?) Nous is the Ancient Greek philosophical concept of intelligent understanding (related to the words "noetic" and "noesis"), and it shows up in lists of theosophical terminology, and there's also some suspicion that nous may be derived from Nu/Nun, the Egyptian deity of water and the unconscious. Nu is invoked in some of the magic spells included in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, but we couldn't find anything about cum uh sol nu, though it was interesting reading.

As for Sol, in addition to being the Latin word for "sun," and invoked both as a symbol of Christ and of gold in Alchemy, it's also the Slavic root for "salt." Kwas solny, the Polish word for hydrochloric acid, literally means "spirit of salt." Close, but no cigarillo.

But wait...could alchemy have anything to do with this? We did another hour or so of digging into alchemical terms in various languages, but came up with little convincing evidence. But what if we were taking the wrong tack here? What if we searched in Japanese? What if we searched for flasks?

All we came up with, kids, was the homunculi from Fullmetal Alchemist, an anime we confess we never had any interest in watching. But Imai wouldn't name a song after an anime, now would he? Yes, the word following the Shambhala-Agarttha sequence is "Nonmalt," the name of an fictional ancient underground race who appear in the popular Japanese TV series Ultraman, but every Japanese man Imai's age loved Ultraman as a boy. It was their Star Trek. It's iconic. Surely, surely Imai's not enough of an otaku to name the title of the song after something from an anime, is he? Surely not. Surely we were barking up the wrong tree.

Could it be a literal code or cipher? Could it be an anagram? At the behest of one of you readers, we tried a computer keyboard anagram of romaji  to katakana - no luck. A numerical alphabet-to-hiragana substitution cipher yielded nothing, either.

Feeling frustrated at this point, we were about to give up. A few days ago, when we checked the Japanese internet, we couldn't find any information except for puzzled fans shaking their heads over Imai's weirdness. This time, we dredged up something more: a Japanese fan claimed on her blog (Nikki), Dii Oba... to have solved the riddle, and she had posted a picture of her solution on her blog to prove it. "You can see the solution in the picture, so I blurred it out. But now I feel so good that I solved it!" she crowed. 

Nice claim there, sister. But if you were planning on withholding your supposed solution from the rest of the fanbase in order to get attention, let me give you a piece of advice: you would have gotten a lot more attention from the fanbase if you'd shared it. Everyone wants to know. They don't want to listen to you telling people you've found the answer, then refusing to share it just to make your small, petty soul feel good for a few moments, because you know your insignificant fangirl's life is actually nothing but a blip of consciousness of the futility of existence along the long lonely flatline of endless oblivion stretching out before and after your birth and death for all eternity. Solve that little puzzle next, and by all means, don't share it with us...after all, Mr. Sakurai told us in "Hosoi Sen" that it's better not to know the answers, and we trust him more than we trust you.

And yet...cum uh sol nu was really driving us crazy at this point. We've never failed to look up a reference before! How could we let the Blog-Tick readership down? We kept digging through pages of useless Japanese interweb search results, until at last, we found it. And where else did we find it but on Gunmar Blog, Blog-Tick's little Japanese brother, who were celebrating their third anniversary at Climax Together a few weeks ago. (Congrats on your third anniversary, little bro. Let us pat you on the head in a patronizing fashion, then sigh and talk about the good old days in the aughts, when were were still young.)

So here goes, Mr. Gunmar (god but is that a cringe-worthy affected way of romanizing "Gunma," but whatever. Little brothers do cringe-worthy, affected things all the time. It's their purpose in life.) Anyhow, this is us, Mr. Gunmar, stealing from your blog.

According to Mr. Gunmar, he didn't get it, either. In fact, he was just as confuzzled as we were. He doesn't even say how he found out what it was, or who told him, but according to him, it's this:

cum uh sol nu ... spell each word backwards and you get

muc hu los un ... which is an anagram for "homunculus"!

Except...I don't know what the backwards spelling was for. But we'll be damned...it was English after all. This whole time, we'd been assuming that Imai had been working with katakana versions of foreign words, and had romanized them (probably incorrectly) as "cum uh sol nu" in order to look cool, in much the same fashion as he did with qüan vie nnâ sigue eÿe. The spaces between the bits of the word add to confusion...but he did give us one clue. It is Latin.

"I could never have gotten there on my own," claims Mr. Gunmar, after revealing the solution (though let's notice he didn't see fit to credit whoever did find out...was it the smug author of Nikki Dii Oba? And if it was, damn lady, take credit for your own solutions instead of offering them anonymously to a guy. Sure, Japan is a sexist as fuck country, but you don't need to make the problem worse.)

Anyhow, at this point, we want to point out that we did, in fact, get there on our own, even if we didn't realize it at the time. We were searching for flasks, and the internet gave us Fullmetal Alchemist, and the homunculi. Damn you, Imai, are you really that big of an otaku after all?

Luckily, he probably isn't...unless Fullmetal Alchemist was the first place he heard about homunculi, in which case, shame on you Imai, get your ass to Akihabara because we don't want to look at you anymore (and now I see there's also a manga called Homunculus...if manga and anime are teaching people things, that's great. But the Ultraman reference was enough otakudom for one song already.) Still, Imai's done so much poking around into esoteric subjects that it wouldn't be surprising if somewhere other than anime, he came across the fact that homunculi were all the rage in Medieval European alchemy, though the idea apparently originated with Plato (we're too tired to confirm this right now but if someone wants to check the sourcing on that, go right ahead.) Anyhow, In De Natura Rerum ("The Nature of Things"), the famous Medieval scientist/occultist Paracelsus details the following method for creating homunculi:

"That the sperm of a man be putrefied by itself in a sealed cucurbit for forty days with the highest degree of putrefaction in a horse’s womb, or at least so long that it comes to life and moves itself, and stirs, which is easily observed. After this time, it will look somewhat like a man, but transparent, without a body. If, after this, it be fed wisely with the Arcanum of human blood, and be nourished for up to forty weeks, and be kept in the even heat of the horse’s womb, a living human child grows therefrom, with all its members like another child, which is born of a woman, but much smaller." 

Oh yeah. Just harvest some sperm, stick it into a horse's hoochie, feed it with human blood for forty weeks, and presto! A homunculus. Easy, peasy.

However! Paracelsus and other alchemists were often picture in art from the period as creating homunculi not in animal wombs, but in alchemical flasks like this one:

There's your "flask of another type," kids! It's even in the album booklet! And here's Nicolas Hartsoecker's famous drawing of a tiny man or "animalcule" inside a sperm...and those of you who've seen the album booklet for Atom Miraiha may notice that the shape of this sperm is very similar to the shape of the flask Imai's holding in the photos. Even if we want to punch Imai for being so obscure, good on him for doing the thing properly.  

Because Medieval Europe was even more sexist than Japan is today, guys who believed in Hartsoecker's theory of "Preformatism" believed that sperm actually contained fully formed human beings that would simply get bigger until they became human babies (the "just add water" theory)...and women were nothing but passive incubation vessels.

If this isn't trippy enough for you already, you might be interested to know that further theorists pointed out that if the homunculus contained in a sperm was already a miniature man, he must have sperm of his own. And so on, in an infinite regression, forever and ever. And this meant that Adam, the first man, had contained all of humanity in his ballsack, and this was how he transferred original sin to everyone on the planet today. And in fact, Imai even mentions Adam in the lyrics to "cum uh sol nu." Wow, Imai, we hardly even want to punch you anymore (j/k we still wanna punch you.) Anyhow, let's just pass over the part of Preformatism where they completely fail to explain the existence of women, and go listen to that ancient Buck-Tickistani ode to the Yoni of the Mother Goddess, "Kimi no Vanilla."

If, however, you remain unimpressed and want to learn more about ridiculous Medieval science, I suggest you look up "spontaneous generation" and "phlogiston".

In conclusion: in your face, Mr. Gunmar. You may have solved the puzzle first, but we actually took the time to write a full article about this shit, because we value our readers too much to feel satisfied by doing what you did, which was repost blocks of text verbatim from Wikipedia. Because Wikipedia may be a good starting place, but it is not an acceptable resource for real research. Check your sources before you submit your paper! Signed, Cayce: a graduate of real school as well as goth school, who has been blogging since you were in diapers, figuratively if not literally.

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And now, let's take a swig from our very own flasks to dispel the frustration of the past six hours (we have been working on this shit for six hours now. We wish we were kidding) and enjoy this (mostly) singable translation of "cum uh sol nu -flask of another type-," which will soon be available, complete with notes, over at This is NOT Greatest Site, but we wanted to share it here first, because we didn't want to drag you through reading this whole article and then fail to reward you with the translation at the end.

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cum uh sol nu -flask of another type-
Lyrics: Imai Hisashi
Music: Imai Hisashi

Ah I love you
On the borderline
Ah I love you
Come and dance
Man-made subtype Adam

I'm never die　I'm never die Oh
I'm never die　I'm never die Ha!
I'm never die　I'm never die Oh
I'm never die　I'm never die Ha!

Flask of another type - forbidden creature
Flask of another type - forbidden creature
Shambala-Agartha Shambala-Agartha
Shambala-Agartha Nonmalt

Ah I love you
On the borderline
Ah I love you
Come on home
Nihil, to null, we're gone

I'm never die　I'm never die Oh
I'm never die　I'm never die Ha!
I'm never die　I'm never die Oh
I'm never die　I'm never die Ha!

Flask of another type - forbidden creature
Flask of another type - forbidden creature
Shambala-Agartha Shambala-Agartha
Shambala-Agartha Nonmalt

I'm never die　I'm never die Oh
I'm never die　I'm never die Ha!
I'm never die　I'm never die Oh
I'm never die　I'm never die Ha!

Flask of another type - forbidden creature
Flask of another type - forbidden creature
Flask of another type - forbidden creature
Flask of another type - forbidden creature

I'm never die　I'm never die Oh
I'm never die　I'm never die Ha!
I'm never die　I'm never die Oh
I'm never die　I'm never die Ha!

Shambala-Agartha Shambala-Agartha
Shambala-Agartha Nonmalt
Shambala-Agartha Shambala-Agartha
Shambala-Agartha Nonmalt

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If one of you Tumblr-ers feels like sharing a scan of the pic of Imai with the flask, please, go ahead. We'd do it ourselves but we're not currently in possession of a scanner.

P.S. Who cracked the post title code?

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Coda [Update]: After taking a break, I realized I wanted to add something here. For those of you who wondered why I went off on wild goose chase searching for arcana when the answer was right there in the letters on the page (and for the sake of my own peccatum superbiae I'll have you know that anime is not where I first learned about homunculi.) I went off searching for arcana because I, unlike Gunmar, have been doing this job for a decade, and at this point, I've learned that with Imai it usually either ends in occultism, sci fi, art history, or all three. GJTHBKHTD, the Akashic records, Mona Lisa Overdrive...we could go on all night here. And yeah, I know in PHY magazine he said it was some sort of "letter puzzle." But this is the man who also claimed that the phrase "Atomic Futurists" has nothing to do with Italian Futurism, even though he wrote about Italian Futurism on the last album. This is the man who claimed Mona Lisa Overdrive had nothing to do with William Gibson. In short, I take everything he says in magazines cum magno grano salis.

[Update 2]: I have just been informed that the person who posted the solution on Reddit was one of our very own Blog-Tickers, and apparently she confused the hell out of Gunmar-san. Thanks, Blog-Tickers. Keep it up.

Three-Body Problem Tees & February Fish

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For the first time since 2008, it has been announced that Buck-Tick will undertake a pure and exclusive Fish Tanker's Only Tour. Those of you who've been following NGS for a while may remember our coverage of the 2008 Fish Tanker's Only Tour, which is best remembered for the fan costume design contest, which culminated in this most unfortunate outcome:

As can be observed from the stills above, the plasticky sheen of the white lace frothing about Mr. Sakurai's neck proclaims its pride in being the single ugliest garment ever worn by one of the world's most beautiful people. (And in case you're wondering about the second-ugliest one, it's this, right here. Is a scarf-on-head fetish still tickled when the Scarf in Question is a leopard-print babushka? Judging by the second photo, the answer to that question would appear to be "yes.")

In any case, it's been a while since Buck-Tick have deigned to mount a standalone fanclub-only tour, and we can only speculate as to what sartorial creativities they hold in store this time. For those of you desperate to find out, it's not too late to join Fish Tank: according to Buck-Tick's website, if you join Fish Tank through Fish Tank Web by no later than October 15th, you will be able to enter the ticket lottery for this tour. However, since the process of joining takes a certain amount of time, the sooner you join, the better - and this goes double for overseas fans using non-Japanese credit cards. If you want to join, join today! To aid you in your decision, here are the tour particulars:

Buck-Tick Fish Tanker's Only Tour 2017

January 21st (Saturday) - Club Citta' Kawasaki

January 22nd (Sunday) - Nagoya Diamond Hall

January 28th (Saturday) - Zepp EpicFail Tokyo

January 29th (Sunday) - Sendai Rensa

February 4th (Saturday) - Fukuoka Drum Logos

February 5th (Sunday) - Osaka Namba Hatch

Tickets are 7500 yen each, tax included. A separate drink charge will apply at the door. All fans will receive a free gift upon exiting the venue, and let's hope it's not as ugly as last time. The lottery for tickets is open from noon on October 5th at to 11:59PM October 16th, Japan time. There may be a second lottery, but don't count on it. If you want tickets, it's best to get them now. And for the record, this is a standing tour. For more information on standing tours, read this article.

We've already put a pretty thorough explanation of Fish Tank only rules and procedures up over on NGS, so if you're considering attending this tour, go read it. But we'll mention it again here: Fish Tanker's Only tours are only open to members of Fish Tank. That is to say, if you want to attend, you have to apply for a ticket using your own Fish Tank membership. You can't apply on behalf of someone else, even if that someone else is also a Fish Tank member. Therefore, the rule is one ticket per fan per show. Tickets are non-transferable (i.e., you can't give your ticket to someone else, even if that someone else is also a Fish Tank member) and non-refundable (i.e., they won't give you your money back if for some reason you become unable to attend the show.) Furthermore, before entering the venue, all fans must submit to an ID check, where they present their Fish Tank ID cards and a valid photo ID (for overseas fans, this is limited to either a passport or a Residence Card.) Forget your IDs? Tough, no going in the venue...so if you're planning on attending this tour, make sure you come fully prepared!

In general, there's not much difference between a Fish Tank only show and a regular show, except that at Fish Tank only shows, the band are more likely to play old or obscure songs from their back catalog, because they can be reasonably sure most of the fans will know them. Sometimes the crowds at Fish Tank only shows are more violent than at regular shows, but other times, they're better behaved - it depends on the day. The band have also been known to play reels of exclusive behind-the-scenes video footage (studio footage, PV making-of footage, etc.) before the show starts and between encores.

If you're a member of Fish Tank but you're uncertain about how to apply/pay for tickets and you'd like our help, drop us an email at themadaristocrat at gmail.

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In addition, Buck-Tick have added an extra show to their Atom Miraiha No. 9 tour. This show will take place on Monday, November 21st, in Kumamoto at club B.9 V1. Tickets are 7000 yen each and go on general sale on November 5th. Unlike all the other stops on the Atom Miraiha No. 9 tour, this gig alone is a standing gig. Presumably, Buck-Tick are doing this as a favor to Kumamoto, which is still recovering from the massive earthquakes in April...word is that the damage down there is still pretty bad, since there are only so many construction companies and they can't repair all the buildings at once. If you're interested in attending this show, drop us an email.

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For those of you wondering if Buck-Tick will also mount a general-admission standing tour to support Atom Miraiha No. 9 - I'm sure they will, but they probably won't announce it until the December issue of FT. Since 2017 is their 30th anniversary year, it's highly possible that a general admission standing tour will be connected to their 30th anniversary activities in some way. Then again, they may do multiple tours, since the electronic, beat-driven nature of the album lends itself much more natural to a live house setting than a hall setting, and they did about five tours to support Mona Lisa Overdrive. Cayce's prediction: either they do a short general admission standing tour in March-April, followed by a third Parade Tour in June-July, or they combine the Atom Miraiha standing tour with 30th anniversary stuff and keep going from spring into early summer. Past patterns indicate that they're likely to do a 30th anniversary festival in September of 2017. Stay tuned.

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Meanwhile, in other news, Mr. Sakurai will be appearing on the cover of Rock & Read magazine, issue 68, due out on October 21st. This will be the fourth time Mr. Sakurai has appeared on the cover of this particular magazine, which is exclusively devoted to in-depth individual interviews with male musicians (mostly in the visual kei genre) ripe for the ladies to swoon over (#sexism.) Despite the fact that this magazine is clearly capitalizing on the money-making power of the idol culture which has now permeated even the Japanese rock fan scene, emphasizing cult-like body and personality worship of specific band members over music appreciation and a diversity of musical interests, the interviews are of good quality, so if you can ignore the somewhat troubling undercurrent of sexual fetishism at work here, it's a magazine worth buying. If you'd like our help in purchasing a copy for yourself, just send us an email. We haven't really been keeping track, but we're pretty sure that at this point, Sakurai has appeared on the cover of Rock & Read more times than anyone else, so I think we can assume that he either sells more issues than anyone else, or someone who works at Rock & Read has a massive crush on him (or let's face it, probably both. And we'll bet our favorite The Mortal t-shirt that the person with the crush is a grown-ass heterosexual male.)

And speaking of massive things, the production of the current issue of Massive magazine, which features Buck-Tick on the cover, has been delayed by two weeks, and will therefore be released on October 6th #MercuryRetrograde #geturshittogether.

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In still further news, in anticipation of the start of Buck-Tick's Atom Miraiha No. 9 hall tour this Saturday, Tower Records Online will be selling two designs of Atom Miraiha No. 9 tour t-shirts: a black version and a white version. Reservations for the t-shirts will be open until 11:59 PM on Thursday, October 6th, Japan time, so if you'd like our help in reserving one, let us know asap. T-shirts come in sizes small, medium, and large, and are 3500 yen each. In a novel move, both designs are available in three body types: a standard t-shirt body, a Dolman sleeve body, and an A-line hipster nuGoth body. One t-shirt, three bodies. If you've got a problem with this, we've got no solution for you.

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Atomic Futurists Atomized, or, How Hisashi Got His Wife Back

Friends, this is Cayce, itching to write a review of the new album but with a weekend chock full of Real Life (TM) ahead and consequently, no time to write the review yet. But, perpetually masturbating narcissists that we are, we know you're all out there panting with anticipation to hear our augustly royal personage pontificate in an edumucated fashion about our opinions on this album. Sorry we don't have time yet for edumucation...but we do have time for the opposite: translating this bit from a special exclusive scoop that was printed in The Hisashi Inquirer on Tuesday, detailing how the Atom Miraiha album came to be.

How Hisashi Got His Wife Back

Imai: Forgive me, Acchan. The Mortal made me realize anew how your black soul sucks its succor from the sultry sussurations of the blackest darkness, and if I'm to win you back after my shameless affair, that is the gift I must give you. Also Maki reminded me how much cooler everything was in the 90's.

Sakurai: I see how it is. You'll do it because Maki said so. I'm sick of being the butt of your unfaithfulness and treachery! It's time to get some of my own! I've got Murata on speed dial and I'm calling him for another Pain Drop in five, four...

Imai: Wait! That's not what I mean! I realized I was only attracted to Maki's luscious black locks and scowly goth face because he reminded me of you, Acchan! Be my wife! Be my wife again, I mean.

Sakurai: Stop it with that "be my wife" line! Don't remind me yet again that Bowie's dead and all the good things in this life shall soon pass away, leaving naught but the echoing void of oblivion in their wake. Already I fear I feel more existential despair than one frail man's frame can bear!

Imai: But that's what I mean, Acchan! You and Bowie reminded me just how precious this life is, and how precious you are to me. Every time I heard Yow-Row autotune himself in the studio, I remembered your rich velvet baritone and chilling falsetto with a pang of such intense fondness, I had to duck into the bathroom to cry as I wondered whether you could ever find it in your heart to forgive me and give me another chance to love you as you deserve to be loved.

Sakurai: You were the one who cheated on me first! I call bullshit. I hate you. Buck-Tick is over. This is the end! I have nothing more to say! 

Imai: Would you give me another chance if I told you I wrote a song that sounds just like Wayne Hussey era Sisters of Mercy, but with Depeche Mode electronics?

[Sakurai's cat tail, which he keeps hidden most of the time, appears, and begins to swish back and forth.]

Imai: Would you have anything to say if I told you I packed this new album full of Latin beats, just because I know you like to dance to the masochism tango?

[Sakurai's cat ears, which he keeps hidden most of the time, appear, and perk up with interest.]

Imai: What would you say if I told you I wrote a song that sounds just like London After Midnight covering Sawada Kenji?

[Sakurai sprouts whiskers and starts purring]

Imai: You can't leave me! You're the love of my life! And to prove it, I wrote you a second "Zekkai"!

Sakurai: Bonita, besame mucho!

Thus, the cosmic lovers were reunited, and proceeded to have loud, spicy musical makeup sex all over the studio (and used a lot of electronic toys while they were at it)...and nine months later, Atom Miraiha No. 9 was born. That's the real reason why they named it No. 9, and don't let anyone tell you differently.

The End.

[Taken from The Hisashi Inquirer, September 27th 2016 issue. Translated from the original Buck-Tickistani by Cayce. The incidents expressed herein are solely the views of The Hisashi Inquirer, and are not necessarily endorsed or shared by Blog-Tick, This is NOT Greatest Site, or its associates.]

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Damn, reading this has gotten us all fired up and bursting with a desire to spill our opinions all over you, after all, so here goes - an atomized, track-by-track, bits-and-snippets first take on Atom Miraiha No. 9.

cum uh sol nu - Mr. Sakurai told FT, "I like these vocals. This is what breathing from your diaphragm does." He went on to say that in his mind, this is an Australian aboriginal war dance. In our minds, it sounds amusingly similar to veteran Japanese batcave band Madam Edwarda. The guitar is laced with more than a few echoes of Imai's Daniel Ash fanboy past, that make us want to touch ourselves while listening to "Brain Whisper Head Hate is Noise."

Pinoa Icchio - Imai listened to Six/Nine and Schweinstein over DJ turntables, speeded up by 10%, and he realized that life after the year 2003 had no meaning and that he should have turned to a twelve-step program to disavow himself of "Hamushi no You ni." He did a line and wrote a song that couldn't be any more Imai if it wore a potato mask with B-T written on the cheek and fell asleep after one beer.

Devil's Wings - The single mix sounds like a massive dubstep attack, and the album mix sounds like electronic Sisters of Mercy, yet it's also the distilled essence of Buck-Tick. The lyrics feel both more spare and more jaded than anything Sakurai wrote prior to The Mortal...and do I hear subtle but trenchant criticism of global capitalism and overpopulation? The seven deadly sins theme on this album is bigger than track 6, but I get ahead of myself.

El Dorado - According to FT, in a great reversal of traditional roles, Sakurai insisted on adding the witch's cackle, and Hide didn't like it, but he did as he was told. How does this subtle, understated song manage to be one of the standouts on the album? In part, it's the vivid sense of place: we're in Mexico, home of Mr. Sakurai's favorite tequila, and it seems that after spending a night at Motel 13, we're back on the highway again and we get to hear the continuation of the story - the two songs feel like two fragments of a larger continuing narrative spun by Hide and Sakurai when Imai's not around. The relentlessly dark electronics and moody guitar ostinatos contrast sharply with blue skies, Mexican sun, and golden paradise conjured in the lyrics - but it's all a sham, and even before Sakurai outright admits it in the lyrics, we can hear it in his deliberately maudlin, vibrato-heavy vocals. Even if the singer pretends to himself that he believes what he's saying, none of the rest of us believe him. Without even understanding the lyrics, the feeling of desolation blows from the speakers like desert dust. It may be bleak as fuck, but it kind of also makes you want to get your fuck on - and that's a goth's El Dorado, right there. (goth pickup line: heeeeeey baby, want to suffer existential dread in my bed tonight?)

Bi Neo Universe - Or as it's more commonly known, Paradise Redux. If you were as sorry as we were that "Paradise" was a B-side that never made it onto an album and that the band hardly ever performed live, this is your song, right here. "Paradise" gets a new lease on life. You could push this song straight between the thighs of Sexy Streamliner, One Life One Death, or Kyokutou I Love You, and each of the albums would sigh and moan for more.

BOY Septem Peccata Mortalia - Imai does DAF and Front 242 while Sakurai genteely recreates "Barbaric Man" in Buck-Tick-friendly form. We'd award this the prize for his best vocal performance on the album, if his vocals weren't so superb across the board - how the man's become a better singer on nothing but shochu and kitten cuddles is anyone's guess, but there it is. Listen to his impeccable pronunciation of that Latin word, "luxuria"! Listen to the gentle way he wheedles "motto hoshii, motto hoshii," before literally roaring "I'm a beast!" over the rearing chorus? Make this a fan favorite, kids. We want this song to be our boy.

Jukai - In keeping with the general trend on this album for all the band members to distill the essences of what they have done best over the course of their careers, Hide oozes out the two-chordiest, harmonic minoriest, balladiest two-chord harmonic minor ballad he's ever oozed out sap-like from hiding in the Tree of Hide. There's a lot to be said about the lyrics that I won't say here, so for the moment, let's pay attention to that thrilling tripped-up rhythm during the guitar breaks. Toll's going to have a ball on the drums, but none of the Japanese fans will be able to dance to it. This is "Desperate Girl" thirty years later.

The Seaside Story - We'll admit it: we expected something like Green Cheese Girl on the Beach. But it beat us over the head with its techno beat and proved us wrong! If anything, this is a tribute to Schwein - the ending repeats of "taiyou no shita de" echo the lyrics at the end of "Slip" - "taiyou no mashita de." And...Imai appears to have written lyrics from a woman's perspective. And...unless I'm much mistaken, that woman is The Little Mermaid. We will follow up with this story in the near future. Which brings us to...

Future Song - Smoking a musical cigarette after their first round of musical make-up sex, Imai said to Sakurai, "Remember when we were young and carefree and I wrote catchy-as-fuck electropop songs where we traded off doing the vocals and I rapped about cyborgs and monsters and stuff and then out of nowhere you showed up and started shaking your ass and crooning about sex and all the fans danced their tits off and half of them wanted you and the other half wanted me but we were young and so in love and we had eyes only for each other? That was our past. Now let's make it our future, too. This is my future song 4 u cuz I still luv u Acchan." And they had more musical make-up sex. Aww isn't that sweet I'm getting all teary. Make this song a fan favorite, kids. We want it to have a brilliant future for future.

Manjusaka - Did you love "Gensou no Hana," yet feel that it wasn't nihilistic enough for the endless ennui of your utterly jaded and over-it tastes? Did you love "Gekka Reijin," but wish Hide had written it because you harbor a secret irrational resentment for Imai? Do you have a particular nagging sexual fetish where get off every time you hear that last line in "MAD," "doutte koto nai sa"? Well then, "Manjusaka" is sure the song for you! It steps so very close to the precipice of schlock and yet never lets us fear that we'll fall. Sakurai does so much excellent vocal work on this album it's easy to get spoiled but he really puts the the swoon in croon on this tune. Bye-bye, "Message." Don't bother to call us.

Cuba Libre - Fact: it wouldn't be a Buck-Tick album if there weren't a naked senorita in there somewhere. Just like its title, this song's a bit of a cocktail - "Zekkai" redux with a shot of "Survival Dance." All the Latin rhythms and guitar on this album are making me wonder if Buck-Tick have any idea just how massive their South American fan following is. Are you listening, Yemitza from Venezuela?

Ai no Souretsu - If London After Midnight covered Sawada Kenji covering London After Midnight's "Sacrifice," it would sound like this. This, my friends, is Enka Goth. If you're a goth who likes to go to enka karaoke parties, your problems regarding what to sing have just been solved, for all time. Fujii Maki arranged this song, and therefore we can't help but think of it as a peace offering to Sakurai aimed at helping Sakurai and Imai repair their marriage...though in fact, I more than suspect it's a requiem for Ken Morioka. Definitely more Toki no Souretsu than Bara no Souretsu, this is the song Sakurai specifically recommended to fans on the Dave Fromm show, and he told readers in Fish Tank that he wants people to take it at face value, and take it seriously. You have my 110% permission to blubber and cry like a baby every single time they play this at the live shows, just so long as you cry like a samurai and refrain from those ridiculous anime girl wails. Anime girl wails are not Enka Goth.

New World - Beginning - Amazingly enough, the album mix of this song works just as well as the single mix. An extra layer of electronic noise helps this sparkly bright track blend more seamlessly into the seamy seductiveness of the first 90% of the album. If you're twisting the cutoff and resonance knobs on your analog synthesizer to full blast in sympathy, we feel you. Musically, it's forgettable, but Sakurai's pungent lyrics pull it down to a more serious level and give it just enough punch that it doesn't poke out from the smooth black skin of the rest of the record like a pulsating pus-filled pimple. Aside from the lyrics, the best thing about this song is the Morse code bleeping at the end. When the number 9 new world calls, you've gotta pick up the phone.

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Translations and Climax Together live report coming next week.

New World, New Lyrics

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The lyrics and translations to both tracks on New World are now up over on This is NOT Greatest Site, so go and feast your curiosity! I must say that I'm extremely glad I chose to hold off on translating these until I had a chance to read the official lyric booklet - after ten years of doing this I thought I'd gotten pretty good at deciphering lyrics, but it turns out what I thought I heard was nothing but a bunch of mondegreens, which means that "mondegreen" is now our official Not Greatest Word of the Day. What does it mean? It means, a misheard word. Like when you were a kid and you thought the song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was called "Lucy and This Guy with Diamonds."

In any case, I have saved myself from embarrassment by rightfully refusing to print the mondegreens, and thus I offer you nothing but the 100% accurate official lyrics. As usual, I have written my English lyrics to be singable with the original melody, which means that I've stretched the meaning in a few places, but not by so much that it matters. There's a lot to discuss, content-wise, so if you'd like to discuss, feel free to do so in the comments section of this post.

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New World, New Tower

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We braved the typhoon to pick up the new single at Tower Records, and entered the store only to find a truly gigantic Buck-Tick banner hanging on the wall! Unfortunately, Imai looks like he's been doing a bit too much cum uh sol nu lately.

For reference on just how big the poster was, here it is next to the CD display and the Buck-Tick Cafe menu.

And here's the ad for the album on the third floor. At the bottom, you can see a picture of the large-sized badge you get for free if you purchase the album at Tower. In keeping with the NuGoth designs, it's minimalist black and white...just the sort of thing you could feel comfortable showing off at one of the club events at Trump Room across the street.

If you still want to order the album from us, or any of the magazines, it's not too late. Just send us an email.

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Tower Presents: The Buck-Tick Cafe

Tomorrow the new world is calling you, folks. In one more day, you get to find out what those Devils' Wings really sound like (taste like?) A typhoon is about to hit Japan but so long as the trains are still running, we'll be traipsing out to Shibuya to check out the new release shrine and pick up some CDs and mags for y'all while we're at it.

But it's a testament to how spoiled people get when they live in Tokyo, that when we called up our friends one by one and invited them to share a bottle of Buck-Tick beer with us at the Buck-Tick cafe after the Tower run tomorrow, every single one of them begged off.

"Too tired," sighed one.

"No money," lamented another.

"For the past two months, I've been too depressed and miserable to leave my house," kvetched a third.

"I can't make it, I have to work nights so I can afford to attend every single gig on the Atom Miraiha Hall Tour," we were briskly informed by a fourth.

"The spirit is willing, but the body is perpetually weak. But we're always with you in spirit. And we mean always," said a fifth, rather creepily.

And so on down the gamut of excuses. It makes us sad, it truly does...because we know you readers in other countries would do almost anything for a chance to drink some real, bona-fide B-T beer in a bar within view of Laforet Harajuku. If any of you want to hop on a plane right now, you're welcome to join us tomorrow for a cuppa.

But in fact...we have a confession to make, and the confession is this: we've already been to the Tower Buck-Tick Cafe. We simply enjoyed it so much we'd like to go again.

Three times is certainly the charm, it seems, at least where Buck-Tick cafes are concerned. The first attempt at a Buck-Tick cafe happened with the release of Yumemiru Uchuu, when NicoNico created a Buck-Tick themed cafe space in their Harajuku shop. While the NicoNico cafe boasted some interesting attractions such as a Buck-Tick purikura machine in which it was possible to take photos fake-smooching the band members, a graffiti wall where fans could draw pictures of whatever they liked, a costume exhibit, and a distinctly unappetizing black curry, it had some major drawbacks, such as the fact that it was only open for a week, it closed every night at 8PM sharp, and it didn't serve alcohol.

The second Buck-Tick cafe appeared to celebrate the release of Arui wa Anarchy, at the Cafe Manduuka next to Tower Records Shibuya. While this event featured Buck-Tick placemats, coasters and wall decor, and the cafe itself stayed open till 11PM and did serve booze (plus it was right next to Tower Records where fans had just bought the album), the mediocre food offerings were not Buck-Tick themed, and the sound of Arui wa Anarchy being played over the speakers was drowned out by the loud shrieks and giggling of drunken gyaru girls who were definitely not Buck-Tick fangirls, because Shibuya is a trashy town for trashy teenyboppers, and goths and people over age 25 are unlikely to feel at home there unless it's the middle of the night.

This time, at last, they've finally learned: not only is the Tower Records Buck-Tick Cafe open for a total of three weeks and open till 11PM every night, it serves both Buck-Tick themed food and Buck-Tick themed booze, and while it may not offer anything so exciting as a costume exhibit or a purikura machine, it does have a lot of back issues of magazines. Plus, as we found out for ourselves, the food is damn good.

It's a bit of a walk from Tower Records Shibuya - about ten minutes up Meiji Street, then a little jog down Omotesando, in the heart of (sadly gentrified) Harajuku. However, from the entrance on up, the place makes it clear that non-B-T fans are not welcome.

At the entrance. Most Wanted: these five guys!

And a peek through the door...

A line of empty Buck-Tick beer bottles adorned the window. When our party arrived, there were no seats at the tables, only at the counter overlooking Omotesando, but soon, a space opened up right underneath the projection screen which was currently playing the live DVD of the Razzle Dazzle Tour.

Just in time for the start of the DVD...

And oh look, here comes Acchan-chan-chan-chan-chan.

And did we mention...the Buck-Tick beer is really original Buck-Tick beer? You can even take the bottles home if you like. On this slow weekday evening, very few fans had bothered to show up, so the Diabolo Lucifer chicken was still available, as was the Angelfish Fish & Chips. While the Diabolo chicken was really nothing more than bog-standard fried chicken, the quality was more than satisfactory, and the sharp knives provided to help cut the chicken lent themselves naturally to joking imitations of the "Romance" PV.

As for the Angelfish, it was a lot better than the title made it sound - yummy fish and chips, though I think somebody forgot to tell them the meaning of the word "chips" in this context. What you served us, my fine Tower friends...those are crisps. I recognize that when it comes to potatoes, Japan speaks American, not British, but on the other hand, Buck-Tick recorded a whole album in London. You can accuse us of having a chip on our shoulder, but really we just want to chip in to make this cafe an authentic success.

The Buck-tick label tags were actually edible (if tasteless) rice cakes coated in black food dye. Like conversation hearts, but more rectangular, and none of them said "fax me."

The walls were covered with an admirable number of photo panels.



These panels of the band members are more or less life sized.

If anyone wants the collaboration goods, just let us know - they're still available. In addition to the Victor dog mug, there are black cafe aprons that read "Buck-Tick Cafe" in a NuGoth font. Highly recommended for those of you who are into the whole naked-but-for-an-apron fetish game.

And here it is...the Serious Latte in a Victor Mutt Mug, accompanied by Toll's Kick Highball, both sitting on complimentary Buck-Tick coasters! (With an empty B-T beer bottle in the background...because it's not a Buck-Tick fan party till there's at least one empty Buck-tick beer bottle kicking around. If anyone wants the bottle, we'll sell it to you for 100 yen.)

The verdict: it was a good latte, but the perfect Serious Bear image was attained via a stencil (we saw it hanging in the window of the kitchen.) We could shame the baristas, but honestly - that would be a lot of bears to draw in one day. A stencil gets the job done faster. Despite the odd mixture of sake with ginger ale, the Kick Highball was a damn sight more palatable than any Kaku Highball we've ever had the misfortune of drinking. Actually, it was quite tasty. Maybe if we make it back again before the place closes down, we'll try Sakurai's Sunrise Tequila just for shits and giggles, though methinks it doesn't have the same magical effect unless you drink it at dawn while doing a sun salutation. Otherwise it's just a pointless exercise in diluting perfectly good tequila. We'd have tried #SexyBeastHide's cream soda, if we were ever willing to put melon flavoring into our bodies, but in our very well informed real-life experience, melon-flavored drinks are best seen and not imbibed. Sorry, Hide.

In addition to the scenes pictured above, the cafe was chock-full of back issues of various magazines the Buck-Tick members have appeared in over the past three years, including the lost The Mortal issue of Ongaku to Hito. Hide and Yutaka's autobiographies were also for sale. Not only that, but the maitre'd is a real-life color-contact-wearing anime bishounen who looked to be in his late 30's...so not too young for you Buck-Tick fan ladies!

Buck-Tick beer, bishounen and Harajuku style - truly, this is a classic classy weeb's night out! And don't be shy boys, because we definitely spotted a gray-haired old man drinking at the counter all by his onesies. The only thing that would make it better would be if it's a PokeStop, but since it appears that no Buck-Tick fans play Pokemon Go, we cannot verify one way or another.

(Imai-chu, I choose you!)

Thus concludes our report.

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But...if you're busting out of your knickers so hard that you can't wait for tomorrow's release, and this blog post hasn't tickled your pickle to suit your fancy, then feel free to join me in...reacting...to this brand-new The Mortal copyband, brought to by the one and only Grand Court Jester of the Royal Court of Buck-Tickistan, our own dear Maoh Sakurai.

This is not a joke. We did not have anything to do with the production of these pictures, and we did not alter them in any way. In fact, the members of La Fantomas actually rented this photo studio to stage this photoshoot. We would like to call your attention to the Imai Stabilizer Guitar held by Larger Than Actual Size Jake (who actually went out and bought the exact same hat that Actual Size Jake wore on the real Mortal's real tour). We would also like to call your attention to the Chobits-style anime girl ears worn by Lovely Doll Cardcaptor Mera-Mera Murata. Apparently, according to La Fantomas, this is what happens when Acchan-chan kisses you in front of an NHK Hall full of fangirls: you turn into a Chobit. Don't let this happen to you! Friends don't let friends be kissed by Acchan-chan.

If you've got words beyond this, feel free to add them in the comments section, because we've got none. We're struck dumb.

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